Corpo-America
Formerly the United States of America Basic Information In 2050, America is owned almost entirely by private corporations. It has become a corporate meritocracy.''' With Syndicate executives living lush lives at the top of Vertica, the city constructed above Horizon. Existing in a state of affluent carelessness. Anything happening on the ground below Vertica in Horizon is but an abstraction. On the street level, crime and corruption runs amok in the poor quarters. Beyond that are regular workers and administration. Your vertical living arrangement is determined by employment status. The more vital you become to Syndicate, the higher you climb. That’s the narrative. However, the truth is rising just a little can take generation upon generation. Born a laborer, die an important laborer. Your child becoming a foreman, dying an important one. His child becoming an executive foreman, dying a manager. If you weren’t born into an important administrative position, the chances of your lineage attaining Executive status within less than six generations is non-existent. The currency is a cryptocurrency called Merit, because it is exactly that. The merit you as a person has in this society. The majority of the blockchains are controlled by Syndicate run processing farms, to maintain their control of the economy. If your Merit ever reaches zero, you will be out of a job and roof over your head. Directly escorted to Horizon and into the Divide. An unlinked, off-the-grid portion of the country with relatively little, albeit excessively brutal and ruthless peacekeepers of ConSEC. Vertica Vertica is the sector located above Horizon, held up by concrete and steel-pillars. It is the location where corporate executives live. Anybody with an average income of 50.000 Merit per month, and with an Executive-level corporate clearance are relocated to live and work here. It is also lush with expensive and exclusive boutiques, shops, recreational establishments and fine dining. Additionally, the majority of corporate administrative headquarters reside within Vertica. The AEGIS International presence is a reality, and surveillance is abundant. Contrary to what one might believe, Vertica is the place in Corpo-America with most surveillance and supervision, due to the status the state holds. Horizon Horizon is the place where the average person will be born, live, work and die. It is the industrial sector, always looking up at Horizon as the promised land, looming over every man, woman and child. It is populated by menial laborers, assistants, secretaries and the like. There is a constant promise that anybody can ascend and get their rightful place in Horizon. This drives a competetive and unhealthy mentality in the working class, desperately trying to get a leg up on their colleagues and friends, to position themselves above them and get recognized for promotion. Horizon, as a result, has a booming underworld filled with crime, violence and vices. There is always somebody who wants somebody else killed, beaten or kidnapped. It has become a widely accepted reality that Horizon is rotten to the core with any kind of crime imaginable. Policed by the AEGIS International's Strategic Defense Branch, but ripe with corruption and indifference, the scale of surveillance is a fraction of what can be seen in Vertica. The Divide The Divide is a walled-off section of the Corpo-American south, HERON sector. It was built to contain undesirable elements of the Corpo-American society. Criminals, people without a job or money. ConSEC patrols the whole sector, but are very few compared to their presence in Horizon. They are, however, more prone to using violence and force as there is no supervision in The Divide, and nobody who can instill change cares about the people or the goings-on in The Divide. The resulting many generations born and raised in The Divide have turned to crime, and it now flourishes within the walls. The peacekeeper corps stationed have become increasingly more corrupt as time has passed, and they now only serve as a line of defense keeping the inhabitants from escaping and on occasion displaying their strength and power, usually as a first act by a new Chief or Captain.